Family of 4: Train or rental car?

Eurail vs AutoEurope. Those aren't your only choices. Eurail is not a railroad, it's a company that packages and sells rail passes. What you seem to be saying is a rail pass vs car rental. You have a third choice, point to point tickets on the national railroads - German Bahn, French Rail, etc. I always use the train by myself. I compare prices for every trip and find it's a lot less than by car. For my next trip, public transportation will cost me about 25% of what renting a car would cost. I usually travel alone, but I calculate it for 2 or 3 people on the train and compare it to the same number of people in the same compact car and find it's still less by train. For more than three people, the size of the car and the rental cost would be more.

It also depends on the age of the travelers. For example in Switzerland your own children < 16 years old travel free with you wherever you go. Travels around Salzburg/Munich and south of Munich all the way to the Swiss border can be made via the Bayern Ticket which is about 29Euro for upt to approximately 5 people to travel together. I would never buy a multi country pass.

I'd never travel in a train with wife+kids except high-speed modern trains. So I'd go for a car, which is likely to cost less than 1st class tickets + taxis to/from hotels.

My extended (2, 3, 4 people) comparisons have all assumed adults. In Germany, for Savings Fare and full fare tickets, up to 14 is free. With Länder-Tickets, 4 people (2 adults and 2 children) is mostly the same as two adults. So, for the car vs train comparison, 2 adult and 2 children is the same as 2 adults, except, unless they are very small children, it's going to be cramped in a compact car with luggage.

When's your trip? I wouldn't actually recommend all your destinations, especially if you only have 2 weeks or less. This is more like a 3-week+ trip. But I would probably try something like this if I did your trip by train, which I would probably do since driving there is a lot like work and just like what I do at home - the trains are a nice escape for me and my family. If your trip's a while out, you can get advance-sale DB tickets for certain legs; fares into and out of Germany tend to be very good - hence Paris to Salzburg (it's treated like a German city by DB) instead of Paris - Lauterbrunnen. Best possible family prices are below - these assume timely purchase and are train-specific. The 29€ legs are on the Bayern ticket daypass. Paris-Salzburg: 78€ (adv. sale) Salzburg - Füssen 29€ Füssen - Nördlingen 29€ Nördlingen - Dinkelsbühl - Nördlingen daytrip 29€ Nördlingen - Rothenburg 29€ Rothenburg - Heidelberg 49€ (adv. sale)
Heidelberg - Lauterbrunnen 78€ (adv. sale) (Lauterbrunnen - FRA 78€) That's 399€ or $522 total. You don't say if you're doing the mountain railways out of L'brunnen. These are very pricey so some sort of Swiss pass is often helpful there, if only for discounts. And if you have a Swiss pass you might fly home from Zürich instead of FRA.

The question is a bit more complicated that just train vs. car. Trying to train everywhere (there are train tracks) is doable. And if you know what ticket games to play (as both Russ and Lee surely do) it can be pretty economical. However, Driving in rural Germany is very easy and in my opinion, the best way to hop from small town to small town as you and your children see fit. Who knows, you may find yourself loving Dinkelsbuhl more than you thought and want to stay longer. You might find Nordlingen a bore and want to leave an hour after you get there. You may find yourself with a free few hours one day and might just want to go for an aimless drive. Another plus is that a car can hold your bags while you walk about on short visits. If you are en route from one place to another by train you either have to haul your stuff around with you or leave them at the train station for a fee IF there is storage available. If we can travel as a family of 5 in a small car, you can manage 4 with no trouble. However, you usually cannot rent a car in one country and return it to another without incurring a huge $ penalty. So if you want to have a car for any portion of your trip you will have to organize your stops with that in mind.

That's all good information, thanks. We won't be taking this trip right away. Gotta save some $$ first. Our kids are now 11 and 9. The 9-year-old won't quite appreciate Europe yet. When they are in middle school or high school, more likely. We will definitely use the railways around Lauterbrunnen; the Jungfraujoch is on our must-do list. The plan is 4 nights in Paris, 3 in Lauterbrunnen, 3 in Salzburg, 1 in Fussen, 2 in Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauder, and 1 in Frankfurt before flying home. I have already been to all these places except the last two. I found 4 nights in Paris with my friend in my college years to be just perfect. This will be a return visit, this time with my family. When I went to Salzburg in my college years, I went for 2 nights; this time 3 so we can explore more of the area, including Berchtesgaden, which I did not see the first time. Lauterbrunnen, I spent 6 nights there last August because I wanted to do a lot of hiking, which my wife and kids are not interested in. We'll be returning there for 3 nights, which will be just enough time to see those selected sights that I know my family will enjoy, hence the Jungfraujoch being on that list. The reasons above are why I plan on that trip being two weeks.

There's more than cost to consider. When we traveled as a family of four I found a car much more practical and convenient than trains and still do. The primary reason was luggage which can be a real pain to schlepp around train stations. Rarely will you find porters to assist you. And with a car you can go where and when you want and aren't tied to train schedules.
The drop fee for returning a car in a different country usually can be planned around. Perhaps from Paris train it to Germany, get a car there then do your tour returning the car in Frankfurt.

As I've gotten to know the quirks of people on the board, it's funny to see their responses. Y'all are charmingly predictable in your biases. I have my own biases (trains!) but I'll try to answer fairly: I would in general say that with young kids if the bulk of your trip is in Germany, driving may be the better option. But you're talking about going when your kids are older, certainly old enough to carry their own suitcase. So in your case, buying point-to-point tickets in advance would be both cheap and an easy way to travel. You can take fast trains when the time difference is significant, and slower, cheaper regional trains when it's not. However, if you crave the flexibility that Randy describes, taking a car will be better, but I agree with Lee that it is likely to cost more. There's another option too: If you decide against driving but still want flexibility, my cost-saving advice would be to NOT get a Eurail pass, but to consider a German rail pass. Buy the tickets for France and Swizterland individually in advance and stick to those dates. But the German rail pass is a good deal because it gives you more flexibility like a Eurail pass, but is cheaper and since there are no costly mandatory reservation fees in Germany, it's a better bet than a Eurail pass that includes France in terms of cost (probably). You can get 2 second-class tickets for 6 days of travel in Germany and Salzburg for $485. The pricing for your kids will depend on their ages. Point to point tickets for specific trains bought in advance will likely be cheaper, but if you want to be able to be on your own schedule without a car, the German Rail Pass is a good option.

"You can get 2 second-class tickets for 6 days of travel in Germany and Salzburg for $485." Tickets? Or is that the 2nd class twinpass? Rick's price is $496. The two kids would cost another $248. Jimmy is traveling in France and Switzerland too. A 1st class saver pass for 6 days in 3 countries will cost $444 per adult, $222 per kid if he goes before the 11-year-old turns 12, more if not: http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/select.htm But all that still adds up to over $1300, which looks like a whole lot more than the other options. The convenience of a pass is worth something, but maybe not that much.

The 12 year old is absolutely 100% free in Switzerland. Why would you buy a ticket for a 12 year old that's good for Swiss Transport when it's already free?

Russ, yes at the German Rail Pass website operated by DB, the adults are $485 together for a 6 day Rail Pass. That works out to $40 per person per day of travel, which is not the cheapest way to go for some of their train connections, but isn't a bad price if you want to take ICE trains for the longer journeys, and in some cases may be cheaper than P2P tickets, but overall P2P would probably be slightly cheaper, and Laender-tickets would make the whole thing far cheaper, but that's only really a good bet for rides that will already be taking place entirely on regional trains. If they were to do a Eurail 3-Country pass, the adults would cost $1,081 for a 9 day pass (8 day pass is unavailable) but be in 1st class. They need 8 days for their travel. Not including the prices of the kids b/c we don't know how old they'll be when they go. But it does seem to me that if they want to pay a little more for flexibility in Germany the German Rail Pass is one option that might work for them. Would driving be cheaper? Maybe, it's hard to say because it depends on the size of the car they'd be renting and whether it's automatic or manual. But a 3-country Eurail Pass would probably be the most expensive option.

It is interesting to me that no one here has proposed a combination of trains and car rental. We have travelled with our kids 7 times to Europe, starting as toddlers. Sometimes the train is perfecteveryone gets a nap and comfy downtime, with room to walk around a bit. Other times, esp. when you want to explore the countryside, the car just works better. I would recommend a car for southern Germany and Austria for a few daysso many fun places to explore that would just take too long on a train. It's much more of a production to hop on and off trains when you have a family in tow. In France and Switzerland, the train seems like a better choice. Especially in Switzerland where the trains are a featured attraction, not just transport!

Angela, I was just about to make that suggestion: part train, part car. The kids will really enjoy the train, but a car would work nicely in Germany. So I would suggest Paris to Lauterbrunnen on the TGV; use trains in Switzerland (BOTH kids are free with the Family Card as long as the older one hasn't reached the 16th B-Day). then train from Lauterbrunnen into Germany and pick up a car.

I would also consider combining train and car travel. Advance train fares can indeed be cheap but my experience has been that it is very difficult to get 4 of those for popular destinations at the hight of the travel season. So you will be paying closer to 2 adult fares and have to take that into consideration when you compare it to the cost of car rental.

One more thing to consider when comparing the cost of rental car to train tickets is the gas & tolls. Initially a rental car may look a bit cheaper than 4 train tickets but when gas & tolls add hundreds to the car cost it may look a bit different. Just something to keep in mind.

Jimmy, for what it's worth, I have twin 9 year olds and a 6 year old and we will be in Austria/Southern Germany and then on to Paris (12 days). This will be their 2nd trip to Europe. Their first trip was 4 years ago and I do believe that they were a bit on the young side to do some of the things we wanted to do. However, at this age, we've prepared them that this as an adventure vs. a vacation and we began to engage them in conversations about these places over the past year. My 9 year old son "consumes" books, especially liking to wars/history. Riding a high-speed train and seeing the Eiffel tower is also a draw. One huge draw for all 3 kids is the fact we're staying on a farm apartment (recommended by Rick Steves) for an entire week (for about $700) which includes a full kitchen too. From there we'll do our appropriate sightseeing. There are ways to engage the young ones and not throw a travel budget out the window (great suggestions from the other posts). Good luck!!

Thanks for all your feedback! I'm going to print all this out and save it for review when the time to go to Europe draws nearer. :)